Stone Mountain, Georgia

We spent two weeks in Georgia, just east of Atlanta, in Stone Mountain…at the end of November/beginning of December. I’m finally documenting our stay!

The Stone Mountain campground is beautiful in late fall. Beautifully groomed campsites on the lake at the base of the mountain with piles of auburn leaves between the sites for the squirrels (and my son) to play in. For us this picturesque location was sadly, for the most part an administrative and prepping point. Chris’ office was about 40 minutes away from the campground so he had one full week of office visits rather than airplane flights. For the kids and I, we spent quite a bit of time prepping for our Florida trip, making Christmas preparations and we had several unexpected events.

Our first adventure here was a tornado watch, turned tornado warning….turned…you guessed it…tornado touch-down! We had some tornado fun in Texas this last May, but this tornado was actually closer to us than the Texas ones. We knew that there had been destruction in Kentucky and that heavy rains were coming, but this caught us by surprise. Chris was in Phoenix for business and called because his weather app was giving him tornado alerts and he realized it was for us! I checked my phone, but my weather app still thought I was in South Carolina. The minute I changed the settings…my phone began to blow-up with alerts. Then an older gentleman in the campground knocked on our door with concern and wanted us to seek tornado-shelter in the bathroom. The campground was quite empty mid-week this time of year, so there were only about five other rigs in this section of the park. I am so thankful for how thoughtful the RVing community is! We immediately grabbed a few things and proceeded to spend the next two hours bunkered down in a shower stall in the men’s bathroom. When you live in a lightweight box on wheels…you don’t wait around inside your home…you leave. Remember….weather always happens when my husband travels!

We also brought rain to the greater Atlanta area when we arrived. Prior to our arrival, this area of Atlanta had been in a drought and there was a fire ban at the campground. We are proud to say that they rain arrived the same night that we did and there seemed to be at least 72 hours of constant rain during our visit. The fire ban was lifted and the residents seemed quite happy to have the rain. If you’ve followed our travels, you’ll note that we have brought rain to many areas in need, as Massachusetts will attest to!

I also spent several days taking my 11 year-old, Angie, to various doctor appointments. In early October, we noticed a small, yet hard, bump on her right shoulder. It was slightly red with a tiny pin-point dot in the middle. I immediately feared a tick bite, yet it did not have the classic signs. The cause for my concern was the shooting pain she was having in her shoulder. We immediately signed up for Teledoc, a Telemedicine plan where you can consult with doctors via phone call or Skype within a three-hour time frame from when you initiate the request (and we qualify for an awesome affordable rate with our FTF membership). Sadly, we found out that the plan does not start until the first day of the next month. After much online research, we decided it was safe to wait two weeks and kept an eye on her. On November 1st I scheduled a phone consult with a Teledoc doctor and was advised that he did not believe it to be a tick and we were directed to try warm compresses and give it two weeks. After two weeks, we consulted with the doctor again who prescribed two weeks of strong antibiotics…as at this point it was assumed that there was some type of bit and perhaps her body and trapped the venom and that was creating the bump. Two weeks later…no change after enduring those icky antibiotics. So, here we are in Atlanta and we visited the dermatologist who said she did not want to biopsy this bump. We then visited the general practitioner who punctured a hole in it, in an attempt to squeeze a foreign body out of it…only to find nothing in there. The next week we visited a surgeon who did not want to open it up again as he believed that whatever it was, was exiting her body through the opening. We also had some bloodwork and a lyme test done as extra precautionary measures. Needless to say, this took a little bit of time. I am truly thankful though that we were stationary for a bit so that we could have this all done. As I’m writing this two weeks later, it has still not completely healed and the bump is back….and we have still not heard definitive results on the bloodworm…so the saga continues for my sweet girl. I will say though that although Teledoc couldn’t resolve this complicated issue for us, I was very pleased with my first two encounters.

We had one beautiful day at Stone Mountain where the weather was warm with a cool breeze and the skies were crystal clear. I took the opportunity to grab the kids and the hiking boots and we headed up the mountain. We took the walking path up Stone Mountain. It is only one mile each way, but it was a great little hike with major views.

Aside from all of this excitement, we enjoyed sharing time with some of Chris’ coworkers and Chris arranged for the kids to have a tour of the Dobla factory in Duluth, GA. The kids were thrilled to explore Chris’ company, the chocolate factory and meet the owner from Holland.

We ended our time in Georgia with a night out. Chris had his company Christmas party. It was so fun to get all dressed up…he even bought me a new pair of heels! The kids enjoyed a night out in the hotel, while we socialized downstairs and danced the night away. What a festive way to kick-off Christmas.